save the Blue Tier

no logging

She has been charged with blockading trucks removing logs from the
Anchor Road coupe on 19 April 2004.

Defendant was arraigned on 3rd June at St. Helens and on the advice
of J. Avery, Q.C., acting pro bono publico, entered a plea
of not guilty. Case was set over for further proceedings on July 7,
2004.

UPDATE 2004/07/07: committal hearings has been
set for 16 September, 2004

UPDATE 2004/09/16: charges dismissed on
technicality

sylvia's view

Everything in the forest is finite, or will be if we do not halt
the frenzy of logging that has been increasingly self evident in
Tasmania since woodchipping began in 1972. Blue Tier is an example
of what can occur when, over time, small logging companies become
giant corporations listed on the stock exchange. Places where
'economicationalism' is the basic premise. A policy where
everything, but everything, is based on economics and
profit. Tasmania's forests have not been immune. Once publicly
owned forests, these have been handed over by government, under
the auspices of the so called Regional Forest Agreement, to now
powerful timber corporations.

To these organizations, Tasmania's old growth forests, with trees
over four to five hundred years old, are ripe for the
felling. After driving their plantation banner in other areas of
this island for many years, the companies have now arrived at Blue
Tier. Some of its forests already destroyed and plantations
already in place.

Yet, not everyone agrees the companies should continue this
process. Small communities like St. Helens, have developed deep
personal feelings for Blue Tier, for it has always been a
significant part of their lives.

Blue Tier is far more than a forest. It has a history all its
own, long before the Europeans came to work it for tin mining. To
the Aboriginal peoples who understood the process of life cycles
of the natural world, it must have been a place of wonder. Their
rockshelters hidden within the forests speak of a long
occupation.

Then the discovery and ultimate extraction of tin. The humpies,
then houses at Poimena. A school. A playground. A pub. More and
more people arriving to mine the rich nodes, driving along tracks
where thousands of their horses either died of exhaustion or
choked to death in the mud. It has been said that the roads of
Blue Tier are macadamized with the bones of these horses.

We need to remember that future generations will want to see the
place where the remnant evidence of the Poimena township is still
visible, and not find it has been lost under a series of
plantations.

There are the Chinese communities that contributed so much to the
economy. Travelling all the way from China to Australia, then to
Tasmania to mine the tin on Blue Tier. Eventually creating their
amazing Joss House at Weldborough. Some of their artifacts are
still being discovered on Blue Tier.

The great wheel that drove stampers at the old anchor Mine. Built
by men who lived at the mine or at St. Helens. The hauling of the
timber to build the wheel. Hauled by bullocks from
St. Helens. There are the ponies, weighed down with heavy bags
slung across their backs, carrying the rich metal down to the
coast to be loaded on the ships waiting at the wharf at
St. Helens.

It is for all these things and so much more, I decided to be
arrested at Blue Tier. It is for the children. Our grandchildren
and their children. It is for future generations that may have to
wait another five hundred years before anyone can witness such
trees again. The logging of old growth forest on Blue Tier must be
stopped to protect what is left of the forest and the so important
evidence of the past.